


Grow up

by orphan_account



Series: Growing Up ‘Verse [1]
Category: DanPlan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Stephen and hosuh both don’t know how to do emotions, THEYRE NOT YOUTUBERS YO, hosuh is very confusing and converses ONLY in mixed signals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 23:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22005934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Stephen’s been telling himself to grow up for the last three years after Hosuh moved away. But now Hosuh’s going to be back in town after three years, and Stephen is left to deal with the aftermath.
Relationships: Hosuh Lee/Stephen Ng, Stephen Ng/Jay Ko
Series: Growing Up ‘Verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584364
Comments: 18
Kudos: 71





	Grow up

_ Hosuh’s coming back.  _

That’s the thought going through Stephen’s head, in big, bold font, taking up his whole head, flashing like it’s an emergency. Honestly, it almost is. Stephen goes through the day, blank-faced and unfocused, with three sentences flashing in his brain and nothing else. He drives to work, dazed. He works, dazed. He eats lunch and dinner, dazed. It’s so hard to think about anything else, even though that wasn’t new. Hosuh always had that effect on Stephen. 

Stephen feels at war with himself over the news, when it comes down to it. Part of him is elated because he missed Hosuh, he wanted Hosuh here, he cried every day he wasn’t for at least a year. But the larger part of his brain is angry. Stephen was just getting over him, wasn’t he? He was moving on, getting better. After a while Stephen has stopped being stubborn and went to therapy at Dan and Jay’s requests. Yeah, he was getting better. He was filling the hole that Hosuh left and the constant pain and self-hate that was there instead. And now, Hosuh has the  _ audacity _ to come back? And ruin his life again? It’s been three goddamn years, and Hosuh thinks he can just waltz back into his life? 

The truth is that Hosuh can. Definitely. Stephen is helpless to stop him, helpless to him, helpless to his smile and everything about him. Stephen is his own enemy, his infatuation and stupid,  _ stupid  _ feelings. 

Some days, Stephen wishes he didn’t have feelings at all. At least, then, he wouldn’t have to deal with the mess that he was. 

_ Grow up,  _ a voice in his head says.

Stephen remembers the day Hosuh left perfectly. It was sudden and unexpected and Stephen feels sick every time he thinks of it. 

_ Hosuh walked through the door of their apartment, and he held his bag and wore his coat and looked the same as any other day. Except he wasn’t smiling, which threw Stephen off. He couldn’t remember the last time Hosuh came home without at least a tiny smile on his face.  _

_ “You alright?” Stephen put down his phone and looked up at him from the chair he was perched on.  _

_ Hosuh sighed.  _

_ “Yeah, I’m fine.” He said, short and abrupt, and his voice had the sharp quality it always had when Hosuh is  _ definitely  _ not fine. _

_ “You sure?” Stephen asked. “I mean, you don’t need to talk about it, I don’t want to pressure you, but you do know you can talk to me, right? You’re allowed to feel more than two emotions.”  _

_ Hosuh turned around and took off his coat. His movements were uncharacteristically rigid.  _

_ “Yeah, I know,” Hosuh responded, sounding incredibly flat. “Sorry, I, uh, have something to tell you.” Hosuh was fidgety and nervous, and his voice was different than normal. It’s less smooth, less confident, and infinitely more nervous.  _

_ “Oh, okay,” Stephen smiled at him, trying to convince both of them that they felt comfortable. Neither of them have ever been good at talking seriously, and that’s why they don’t do it often.  _

_ “My office, they’re, uh, they’re promoting me. I’m basically gonna be able to run and open my own studio now.”  _

_ The tension is Stephen’s shoulders dissipated instantly, and he got up and hugged Hosuh as hard as he can. If Stephen was strong enough he’d probably have picked his boyfriend up and spun him around- but Hosuh had always been the physically stronger one anyway.  _

_ “Hosuh, that’s, that’s great!” Stephen exclaimed, and he is genuinely filled with happiness for him, filled to the brim to excitement. Hosuh’s wanted this for so long and Stephen is so, so proud of him for getting there.  _

_ Hosuh still wasn’t smiling though.  _

_ “The thing is,” he said, “I need to move to Montreal.”  _

_ And those words hit Stephen like a freight train.  _

_ “You want to- you want us to move?” Stephen’s voice cracked a little with disbelief. “Hosuh, I’ve lived here my entire life, and you want us to just- just leave everything here? Leave Dan and Jay, leave our parents?”  _

_ Hosuh’s expression changed from hurt to contempt in a second.  _

_ “Oh please, Stephen, you haven’t talked to your parents in what? Five years?” He sneered, which was so completely un-Hosuh-like it hurt Stephen’s heart. _

_ “That’s not the point!” Stephen yelled back, frustrated. “I can’t just- I can’t just leave, Hosuh. You can’t just spring this on me one day and expect me to be all happy and shit!”  _

_ Hosuh stood there for what must have only been a few seconds, but it felt longer than anything Stephen ever had gone through.  _

_ “Fine,” Hosuh said, defeated, and paused. “You don’t need to come. I’ll go by myself. I’ll probably still be able to visit back here every couple months.” He smiles weakly.  _

_ Stephen’s brain filters out everything else Hosuh said and focuses in on one sentence.  _

_ “You- y-ou don’t want me to come?” Stephen asked, dejected.  _

_ “No,” Hosuh said, simply, and finally, and he picked up his bag and walked out the door without saying goodbye.  _

_ Stephen heard the door shut and collapses. His knees felt like they broke and his chest hurt. He punched the hardwood floor until his knuckles bled. And then he cried, ugly and unabashed, with tears dripping down his face. He cried until it felt like his body was empty and he had none left to cry. He cried until he was sure his eyes must be bleeding. He cried until he looked as ruined as he felt. But he only did when he was sure Hosuh was gone. Because he never cried around Hosuh before, and he wasn’t going to make this the first.  _

It’s been three years, and Stephen’s still crying. Not as much, but he still feels the tears slipping down his face. 

_ He’s really coming back,  _ Stephen thinks, and he stares at the ceiling of his bedroom. Hosuh said he’d be able to visit them often, didn’t he? Hosuh should’ve come back a while ago. 

“Once every three years isn’t what I’d call often,” Stephen says aloud, to nobody except himself. 

Stephen gets a call, and he keeps lying on his bed while it rings. When it’s on the last ring, he gets up and answers it. It’s Dan. 

“Hey, dude, are you okay?” Daniel asks, concerned as ever. Stephen knows Dan is trying to help him, that’s all Dan ever does, but Stephen wants to be alone. 

Of course, that’s not really what Stephen wants. Stephen doesn’t want to be alone, Stephen wants to be with Hosuh, but he wants to be with Hosuh is Montreal, he wants them to be happy and to live in Hosuh’s stupid new big house because his promotion made him stupidly rich, and he wishes this never happened. He wishes he just moved. 

_ If you weren’t so difficult, Hosuh would’ve still wanted you around,  _ part of his mind remarks, and most of his brain knows that this is just an intrusive thought, but a lot of Stephen agrees wholeheartedly with that statement. Stephen doesn’t get to be mad that Hosuh’s coming back; Hosuh should be the angry one. Stephen should have been happy for him. Right? Stephen doesn’t get to be mad at Hosuh for ruining his life; because it was really Stephen that ruined his own life. 

_ I should’ve just moved.  _

“Hey, Stephen?” Dan asks through the phone. “Are you there?” 

Stephen shakes his head and blinks. “Yeah, sorry.” 

_ Get your head of the clouds, Stephen. Grow up.  _

“Are you alright? With Hosuh being back in town and all that.” 

“Yeah, hopefully,” Stephen pauses. “Honestly, I’m kind of mad. That he’s coming back. Because I was getting better, I was getting over him, I was getting better at-“ Stephen makes an unintelligible noise- “doing… emotions. And now he’s gonna be back and I’m gonna be back at square one.” He pauses again, unsure. “Is that fair? Do I deserve to do that?” 

“Yeah, totally,” Dan responds. “I mean, it’s a normal reaction. I’m pretty sure Hosuh isn’t coming back with the sole intent to fuck up your progress in therapy though.” 

Stephen laughs weakly. “Yeah. I mean, I hope that maybe he’ll be back for like… good, you know? And that we can get back together. Because I really, really miss him. Every day. Even though I know he basically ruined my mental stability, I still want him back.” 

“Yeah, I know. Hosuh’s like that.” Daniel says. “You know, if I was gay, I’d probably have fallen for him to. He’s easy to be infatuated with, I think. I mean, when I met him I just really wanted to be friends with him. More than any other person. I don’t know why, really. I think he’s just compelling or something.” 

“Glad to see someone agrees with me on the inevitable mind-changing effects of Hosuh Lee.” 

Dan chuckles a little bit, and Stephen laughs too, even though it wasn’t really a joke. Stephen thinks that it was really just to fill the emptiness in their ears. 

“Thanks for telling me he was coming, by the way.” Stephen says. 

“Yeah, of course. I know the two of you didn’t really keep in touch but I figured you might want to know before he just… showed up.” Daniel answers. “You know, he did miss you, too. He told me.” 

Stephen barks out a laugh, which is more of a cough than anything else. “Funny that he told you instead of me. He didn’t answer any of my calls anyway.” 

Dan sighs. “I don’t really know what to tell you about that. Hosuh’s bad at dealing with conflict though. He just shuts down. Maybe that’s why he never called you.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Stephen responds, his tone sharper than he meant to. “Don’t act like you know more about him than me.” 

“Yeah, sorry,” Dan says, and he sounds genuinely sorry- which is out of character for Daniel. “Anyway, Hosuh’s going to stay at my house and he’ll probably be there tomorrow, so if you want to talk to him you can call me.” 

Stephen groans. “No, I’ve officially decided I’m just going to stay inside all day and hide. I don’t think I can deal with it.” 

_ Grow up,  _ his head says again.  _ Stop being a coward and talk to your stupid ex.  _

“Yeah, that’s alright,” Dan said. “Dude, you know I just want you to be happy, right?” 

“Yeah. I know. I have something I need to do now though.” 

“Oh, okay. Have a good time doing whatever mysterious outing you have planned! Bye!” Dan says. 

“Bye,” Stephen responds flatly, even though Daniel’s already hung up.

_ It’s only a few hours after Hosuh left, and Stephen has managed to stop crying somehow. He has officially decided to stop thinking about it for now.  _

Grow up,  _ a voice in his head says.  _

_ So that’s what Stephen is trying to do. He’s forgetting about his weird fucking inferiority complex and anxiety and all his fucking issues tonight. He is going to have a nice night. Everything is going to be fine, because Stephen is an adult with a job and a life and friends. Hosuh isn’t the only thing he cares about. And Stephen doesn’t  _ need  _ Hosuh. Nope! Not at all. He is strong and independent and not crying his eyes out.  _

_ Shit. He actually is crying his eyes out. Again.  _

_ Stephen is sick of thinking about what he did wrong and is also sick of being mad at Hosuh. He’s kind of just sick of this. He wants his boyfriend back.  _

_ Of course, that’s not going to happen. He’s already fucked it up, and he already called Hosuh’s cell phone seven times, who hasn’t picked it up any of those occasions.  _

_ So instead he calls Jay. He picks up on the second ring, which he always does.  _

_ “Hello?” Jay says, and his voice sounds the same as ever. At least Jay is consistent in this huge outlier of a night.  _

_ “Hi,” Stephen says, and he’s trying to make it sound like he wasn’t just crying, but of course that just makes it sound more like he was crying. “Can you come over?”  _

_ “Uh, sure,” Jay confirms. “I’m not doing anything else anyway.” He pauses, “Stephen, are you okay?”  _

_ Stephen’s body shudders and it feels like he’s gonna start crying uncontrollably again. But he doesn’t.  _

_ “Yeah, I’m fine. Can you just come over?”  _

_ “Yeah, I’ll be over in ten minutes,” Jay says, and his voice is gentle, almost like he thinks Stephen is fragile. Stephen hates it. He’s not a baby.  _

Grow up,  _ his head says again.  _

_ “Thanks, bye.”  _

_ Jay is actually over in twelve minutes. Not that Stephen was keeping track or anything.  _

_ “Hi,” Jay says, and he’s holding his bag and he looks almost  _ just  _ like Hosuh did a few hours ago when he walked through the doorway.  _

_ “Hi,” Stephen says back. “Wanna watch a shitty Netflix movie?”  _

_ “Wanna tell me why you were crying?” Jay shoots back, and then immediately apologizes when Stephen’s face goes white. “Sorry, you don’t need to tell me. And that was a really bad way to ask, I’m really sorry.”  _

_ Tears are starting to fall back down Stephen’s face as he says that it’s fine, it’s fine, everything’s fine. He wipes his eyes and asks if they can just watch a movie.  _

_ “Of course,” Jay says, and his voice is gentle enough it almost sounds like Hosuh’s.  _

_ When they sit on the couch and Jay chooses a movie, Stephen isn’t really paying attention to it at all. He’s looking at Jay instead. He looks kind of like Hosuh, if you look at him long enough. Or if you don’t think about it enough. They’re around the same height- even though Jay is a bit taller- and have similar body shapes. They both have long, black hair. They’re both nice and have soft voices.  _

_ Part of Stephen’s head thinks,  _ close enough.  _ Close enough to Hosuh. And when he leans over and kisses Jay it almost feels normal.  _

Stephen didn’t really have anything to do, but he didn’t want to talk anymore. He didn’t want to talk about Hosuh. That was all he ever did nowadays. He talked about Hosuh at therapy, talked about Hosuh to Jay and Dan, thought about Hosuh when he was alone. Wasn’t he going to therapy to  _ stop  _ his life from revolving around Hosuh? 

Maybe he’s doomed to be like this forever. Hosuh is the sun and everyone who talked to him got swept up into orbit. Stephen is just another planet circling around him. 

Stephen is still sick of it, though. The infatuation would be fine if Stephen could see Hosuh, could talk to him, could follow him around like the lot puppy dog that he was- even that would be better than this permanent cycle of hating Hosuh and then loving Hosuh and permanently hating himself. It was so goddamn frustrating to be alone, even though Stephen brought it upon himself. He’s a snake eating his own tail to satiate his hunger, a never-ending loop of self-destruction. 

His therapist said that his relationship with Hosuh wasn’t healthy, and that in the long term it would be better for Stephen that they weren’t together. It’s been three years, which seems pretty long-term to Stephen, and he’s not doing any better than when he was with Hosuh. In fact, he’s doing way worse. His therapist is full of shit, in Stephen’s personal opinion, but it makes Dan happy to see him go. And it is helpful, in some ways. He just wished that his therapist wouldn’t call his relationship with Hosuh toxic, because it wasn’t. They were the definition of perfection, and it was Stephen’s fault for screwing that up. 

_ Grow up.  _

_ Hosuh was staying in Dan’s house before he moved, apparently. He’d rather sleep on an air mattress at Dan’s than spend one more minute with Stephen, apparently.  _

_ But Stephen definitely wasn’t bitter. Not at all. _

_ He’s realized that Hosuh had just left. He didn’t take the vast majority of his stuff, which was bizarre. Hosuh wasn’t very materialistic, but he had a few shirts that he’d rather die than abandon.  _

He’d rather leave all of his stuff than be with me for one more minute, huh,  _ Stephen thinks. It hurts.  _

_ Stephen gathers all of Hosuh’s stuff in a bag, and he has a few ideas of what to do with it. He could drop it off at Dan’s house, maybe, be nice for once. Or he could burn it or throw it in the trash, get rid of everything.  _

_ Instead, the bag stays in the corner of the dining room for a week. The apartment feels incredibly empty.  _

_ And then Hosuh shows up at his house again.  _

_ “Hi,” Hosuh says. He sounds incredibly nonchalant for the situation, which makes Stephen angrier than he already was.  _

_ “What do you want?” Asks Stephen. He’s not in the mood for formalities and he’s still angry, he’s still hurting.  _

_ Hosuh looks hurt by Stephen’s tone, which is bizarre because he’s the one who dumped him in the first place. His eyebrows scrunch up a little and his lips are pulled in a tight, uncomfortable line. A crueler part of Stephen relishes in Hosuh’s discomfort.  _

_ “Well,” Hosuh responds, and his voice is sharper than it is normally, and his face shifts back into the carefully practiced veil of uncaring it was before. “I wanted to say goodbye, because I’m leaving today. I realized I didn’t really say goodbye.”  _

_ “Yeah, you didn’t,” Reaffirms Stephen. “You kinda just slammed the door and left.”  _

_ Hosuh squirms a little at the mention of how he acted. Stephen thinks maybe he should just drop it, because Hosuh hates conflict and Stephen hates seeing Hosuh hating things, no matter how cruel and bitter he’s feeling.  _

_ Part of Stephen wants to ask ‘do you want me to go with you now?’ but he’s sure that Hosuh wouldn’t. Hosuh deserves this, he deserves the promotion and his new life as a fancy shmancy rich artist. He doesn’t deserve Stephen dragging him down and being stupid and needy.  _

Grow up,  _ says part of Stephen’s mind again. So that’s what Stephen’s doing right now. He’s not going to beg Hosuh to forgive him and to take him back, even though that’s what he wants to do. He’s sacrificing things to make Hosuh happier.  _

This is maturity,  _ Stephen thinks.  _

_ The two of them remain as a standstill at their- no, Stephen’s front door.  _

_ “Oh!” Hosuh exclaims, “I’m also getting a new phone so I have a new phone number,” he explains as he hands Stephen a piece of paper. “Here it is in case you want to talk to me.” Hosuh’s lips turn up in an awkward smile as Stephen takes it.  _

_ “Thanks,” Stephen says, and hugs Hosuh. It’s  _ so  _ nice to be touching him again, Stephen realizes. He’s that fucking clingy that he can’t take a week without touching Hosuh, apparently.  _

How the fuck am I gonna deal with him living in Montreal?  _ Stephen thinks.  _

_ The answer is that he won’t.  _

_ And when Hosuh walks away, and he does a little bittersweet wave back at Stephen before stepping into his car- which is odd, because Stephen didn’t know Hosuh had his drivers license- Stephen’s heart breaks for the eighty-sixth time that week.  _

_ When he closes the door, he takes the bag of Hosuh’s things in the dining room and puts them all back where they’re supposed to be. And it’s almost like Hosuh’s still there. Even though he’s not. And to be honest, Stephen is barely there either.  _

  
  


Hosuh’s here. Not in Stephen’s house, but he’s in the three mile radius of him, and it scares Stephen so much just thinking about it. He stares at himself in the mirror, and he doesn’t even feel like himself anymore. He remembers when he met Hosuh, and they were teenagers, and they were happy and full of constant laughter and energy. Stephen’s hair was purple and in a mohawk and he wasn’t quite as tall as he was now, but he was still at least four inches taller than Hosuh. 

Stephen looks so incredibly different from then. His hair’s rather normal now, with any trace of dye gone and he barely spends any time on it now. He hasn’t worn earrings in so long, and he’s started to wear glasses instead of contacts because they do a better job of covering up the permanent eye bags he gained from his newfound inability to sleep. 

He looks older. 

_ Grow up,  _ the voice in his head still says. 

Hasn’t he already? 

_ Grow up.  _

So Stephen goes into his room and he takes a pair of earrings from his jewelry box, and puts them in his ears. The piercings are almost closed up.

Hosuh was the reason he got his ears pierced anyway. 

And Stephen isn’t really sure that he’s thinking when he grabs his coat and runs out of his apartment’s door. 

He’s definitely sure he’s not thinking when he gets into his car and starts driving to Dan’s house. 

He’s sick of thinking too much. He’s sick of being scared. 

This time, he’s really growing up. 

**Author's Note:**

> this may??? be a series???


End file.
